In 2025 alone, insured losses for catastrophic (CAT) events in Canada totalled $2.4 billion - marking the ninth consecutive year of record losses. And while hurricanes or floods or wildfires can never really be predicted, they can be prepared for. It’s this level of preparedness that’s a client’s first line of defence.
Speaking to Insurance Business, Bill Dietz, President of Paul Davis Canada - residential and commercial emergency cleanup and restoration experts - revealed that it’s this mindset that they’re constantly trying to impress on their clients.
“At Paul Davis Canada, we often complete a risk assessment for our commercial clients based on geography and building type. We will do business continuity planning with an onsite walkthrough with them, as well as offer training for their staff. We ensure we involve our national partners in our catastrophe planning strategy sessions so that we are aligned before a major weather event occurs”.
As Dietz told IB, this level of support centres around meeting clients where they are, training them, listening to their questions and ultimately helping them really understand what to prioritize should an event occur. And, at the moment, they’re focused heavily on earthquake awareness with several clients.
“Earthquakes don’t happen very often but a large one could occur at any time. It is critical that we are ready when it does”.
With more and more catastrophic events happening every year, there’s been a renewed interest in emergency restoration services. For Dietz, he attributes this heightened awareness to the unsteady and unpredictable climate right now.
“We've seen the costs of weather driven catastrophes go up tremendously in the last number of decades,” he added. “It is very cyclical in nature. You'll find when we come off a year where we've had a lot of catastrophes there is a lot more interest and focus in planning for future events. If we haven’t had a bad catastrophe in a year or two there is a tendency to take the tension off that planning. But that is exactly when you need to shore up your resources and tighten your processes”.
And the data certainly backs up Dietz’s assertions here. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC), the largest severe weather events in 2025 were;
In order to both mitigate and prepare for these events, experts now deploy an arsenal of technology and tools to help. At Paul Davis Canada, they’re operate a 24/7 emergency service availability and a 2 hour or less response window, as well as being a 365 days a year operation.
“We’re always ready to mobilize at a moment’s notice” added Dietz. “We’ve identified specific locations and key people within the organization who’re excellent at responding to catastrophes across the country. These offices have been certified to respond to catastrophe’s based on their availability of resources and strong performance on past catastrophes. We also ensure we have connected with our key clients in advance and have processes in place with them on a macro level.”
On a micro level, Paul Davis Canada offers daily updates to clients as well as constantly updating and evolving their systems to ensure the right people can speak and work with each other.
“We also believe strongly in using Applied Structural Drying (ASD), wherever possible,” added Dietz. “With that, if it’s a clean water loss and we get to it quick enough, we could actually dry much of a property out in place without having to rip out too many materials. That makes the rebuild a lot quicker and, because we don't have to replace flooring and other structural items, allowing companies to get back to business a lot faster.”
And while all this technology is reshaping the restoration landscape, it’s not a replacement for the human touch. As Dietz told IB, their people are the cornerstone of their strategy, their values and their USP.
“Dealing with a catastrophe event is very emotional for the property owner”, he added. “This is someone's home or business that's been flooded, damaged by fire or hail, or otherwise affected. Their prized possessions have been damaged, and often it's thrown their life off kilter.”
As Dietz explained, a lot of the technology out there right now can provide strong visual documentation, take measurements, they can move claims quickly and even write estimates, but having a human on the phone or in person after an incident occurs really is essential.
“You need both,” he told IB. “And it's challenging right now - and especially with technology moving so rapidly. At Paul Davis, we’re constantly looking at how AI can help us capture things - like taking dictation on where the source of the loss was, what our plan is and what we’ve recorded today. There are some amazing tools where you can use video and voice-to-text to create reports within minutes that gives claims professionals and our teams back at the office visibility into a claim within minutes. I remember back in the day sending Polaroids into an adjuster, and now it's instantaneous. We can really capture anything and get a real sense of what's going on on-site.”
However, as CAT events are becoming more complex, technology can only go so far - tools are only as good as the people wielding them. At Paul Davis, as these events become more widespread so too are their boots on the ground. For Dietz it’s a question of how can his people be where they’re needed when they’re needed without compromising the quality of their service.
“It's always a challenge,” he told IB. “Because when we mobilize crews from a certain area, we need to make sure that we have enough resources back in that existing area to deal with day to day operations. [Having said that], we're really excited about what we've built. We have a CAT committee that’s made up of our local owners as well as our home office staff. We also always have certified offices that respond - they’ve demonstrated that they have the people, logistical capability, and experience to mobilize.”
With a national team across 65 locations around Canada, Dietz is proud to say that his people are able to mobilize anywhere across any time zone to tackle any event. The key to this success? Dietz says it all comes down to collaboration - collaboration between insurers, brokers and external partners.
“[At Paul Davis], we have some really great national partners. We’re also very clear about what their expectations are both day-to-day and in a catastrophe situation. [As such], knowing what they're looking for is critical. Because of these strong partnerships too, we've been able to build capacity - and our expectation is that we're able to respond for them during these catastrophe situations.
“We have the capacity, we have the experience and we really strive to be the top partner in the industry for our customers and clients. At Paul Davis Canada, we're easy to work with - we provide value - and we also build really good, trusted partnerships that go both ways.”
This article was created in partnership with Paul Davis Canada
